Page 79 - ART FORM AND MENTAL HEALTH - Ingrid Pénzes

Data analysis
Initial coding
After full transcription of the interviews, text fragments were organized according to the topics of the interview guide. These topics, (1) formal elements, (2) mental health and (3) relationship between formal elements and mental health, were used as ‘sensitizing concepts’ (Charmaz, 2014). First, incident-by-incident coding took place; within each interview, each art product separately was analyzed. This analysis resulted in a set of codes.
Focused coding
In the next stage these initial codes were further categorized by comparative analysis (see dotted line in Figure 1); input of all therapists and over all art products were compared and preliminary categories emerged. Codes about which most therapists agreed or that had similarities were clustered into theoretical codes regarding the formal elements, mental health and their interrelatedness. Based on the initial codes, these categories were described. Within the coding process, it became clear that some of these categories, such as several formal elements, were mentioned by almost all therapists about every art product; these became main theoretical categories. Some other categories were mentioned less often; these became sub theoretical categories. In this stage, a first perspective emerged on how the formal elements of the art product were related to mental health.
Theoretical coding
Theoretical coding conceptualized the interrelatedness between the categories. Comparative analysis over the eight interviews supported synthesizing and organizing the links between the theoretical categories. Within this process some of the main theoretical categories were merged into core concepts. For example, the primary and secondary formal elements (see Figure 2) became main categories under the core concept “structure”. Of others, it became clear that they were related -but separated- main theoretical categories, such as flexibility and creativity under the core concept of “adaptability”. This led to a theoretical framework, conceptualizing the relatedness between sub- and main categories and core concepts. All were defined in detail.
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